Bean bags, not hate, sparked incident, lawyer says

The attorney for a woman accused of committing a hate crime at a South Side festival said it was bean bags, and not hate, that sparked the incident.

Defense attorney Joshua Kutnick argued Monday in Cook County court that race didn't motivate his client, 26-year-old Jessica Sanders of Alsip, who was playing a game with friends near the alleged victims.

"It was because of bean bags," he told Cook County Judge John Lyke. Kutnick declined to comment after the court appearance.

Lyke ruled there was sufficient evidence to support the charges of battery and committing a hate crime against Sanders.

Prosecutors alleged Sanders yelled the N-word, slapped a cell phone out of the hand of one victim and spat on a second victim. The alleged incident took place in July at the during the Chicago Margarita Festival at the South Shore Cultural Center, 7059 S. South Shore Drive.

A viral video posted the day after the incident by one of the alleged victims, Ernest Crim III, of Sanders' tirade has been viewed nearly 900,000 times on Youtube.

Crim testified on Monday that he and his wife, Cassie, attempted to play a game involving bean bags next to a group of people that included Sanders.

When his wife went to pick up a bag, Sanders came over and started yelling that the bags belonged to the people in her group, Crim said. The woman used the slur at least 10 times during the exchange, he said.

After the hearing, Crim said he found the suggestion by her attorney that Sanders wasn't spurred by race when she used the derogatory word to be "nonsensical."

"I think he tried to allude to her use of it as some kind of term of camaraderie," Crim said.

Crim said he also was troubled by the recent rise in race-related incidents in Chicago and elsewhere.

Hate crimes have spiked nationally since Election Day, according to reports. The Southern Poverty Law Center has recorded more than 200 complaints of hate crimes. Specifically, they've seen a surge in vandalism, threats and intimidation connected to rhetoric